“Just more celestial-seeming shit,” she said, taking a long sip. “There’s some intense magic at play in the protection of this place.”
“You think the celestials are the ones protecting it?”
“I don’t know why they would. I always thought Elderglade wasjust another sylvan settlement. But this certainly doesn’t seem normal, does it?”
“I stopped trying to view things asnormalor not back during the first trial, I think.”
“Smart man.”
“You’ve never been here before, I take it?” he asked, tucking his water skein back into one of Polonius’ saddlebags.
She slumped against a nearby tree, wings folding against her back. “To Elderglade? Not once. I’ve visited Verdentia a few times—it’s not too far from Coralith. Crossing into the Midlands at all has held little interest for me over the decades, so I never really thought about coming here.”
“Why has it held no interest?”
Elyria grinned. “Nosy today, aren’t we?”
Cedric grinned back, shrugging his shoulders and gesturing broadly to their surroundings. “Do you have better things to be doing right now?”
“Fair point, well made, Sir Busybody.” Her smile faltered. “I’ve had complicated feelings about the Midlands for a long time now.”
“Because of Evander? When he entered the previous Crucible?”
“That didn’t help,” she said, blowing out a long breath, trying not to summon the memory of watching him walk through the Gate, the feelings of helplessness she’d had knowing he wouldn’t be coming back out. “But truthfully, I think it goes all the way back to the Battle of Luminaria. To the Shattering.”
Cedric stiffened. “That was the day you?—”
“The day I got this power, yes.” She conjured a wisp of shadow, letting it dance off the tips of her fingers. Then, she slid down the trunk she’d been leaning against until she sat on the wet ground, hugging her knees to her chest. “The day I died.”
Silence hung between them, thick as syrup. Elyria felt a pang in her chest, a plucking of that thread.
“The day you what?” Cedric’s voice was like stone as he dropped to his knees in front of her.
Elyria swallowed the knot in her throat, her voice uncharacteristically small when she said, “I died that day. On the battlefield. Our entiregarrison was overrun by Malakar’s cultist army. I was already burning out, my power spent, when asanguinagistabbed me.” She lifted her right hand to her left shoulder, right above her heart. “Here.”
Cedric drew closer, placing his own hand over hers. And even though the sun had started to set, even though a chill was dancing through the air, Elyria felt warm.
“How did you survive?” His voice was barely more than a whisper.
“I didn’t.” She met his gaze, the rings in his warm brown eyes so vibrant and clear, it looked like they were made of his golden flame. Maybe they were.
Cedric’s brow creased, then flattened. “During the Crucible?—”
“Yes. It’s what I relived during the second trial. Because the moment I died was the same moment something else happened too.”
“The Shattering.”
She nodded. “Queen Daephinia sundered the Crown of Concord and banished Malakar, and somehow its power brought me back.”
Cedric’s eyes went wide. “During the last trial, after you brought me back, you said, ‘The crown has done this before.’ ”
Elyria let out a breathy chuckle, attempting her best impression of Aurelia’s celestial, multi-tonal voice. “ ‘A miracle never before seen, and never since replicated.’ The crown’s power brought me back—brought so many of my fellow soldiers back from the brink. But, that power wasn’t the only thing unleashed when it shattered.”
He swallowed. “Your shadows.”
“Hisshadows. His power. I don’t know why it chose me. Why itsoughtme. But it did. And the instant it latched onto me, it took me over. The war was over. Malakar was gone. I had been reborn, and the first thing I did was slaughter every remaining cultist on the battlefield, along with many other innocent people. My own compatriots.” She blew out a disgusted breath. “The Revenant indeed.”
“Hey.” Cedric’s fingers closed around her hand, drawing it away from her shoulder and up to his mouth, where he pressed an achingly gentle kiss to her knuckles. “That was not your fault.”
